The above video shows what I was dealing with, a loud popping noise from the front of the vehicle and the fronts were "surging" under load.

I told my wife that it was the locker engaging in the video so she wouldn't freak out since we were away from an improved road.

I keep up with my half-shafts, and other 4wd maintenance pretty often, but I switched my half-shafts out just-in-case and had the same problems. The loud popping would happen while climbing, when turning on asphalt and binding up the drive line, and when taking off from full-throttle in gravel with 4wd engaged, whether in low or high range.

It behaved normally in 2wd mode.

I put the vehicle in park with 4hi on, and crawled under the vehicle to see what was binding up. The front prop shaft had an incredible amount of slop when I tried to turn it by hand back and forth with all four tires on the ground.

Because of this, I jerked the TC. Once I split it in half, I noticed that the chain just didn't look right. I took the chain out of my 126 case and compared the two but saw no difference. All TC internals looked great,the clutches looked like they had never been used. I switched chains anyway, and threw the case back together, then reinstalled.

I no longer have any noises coming from the TC in any of the above mentioned scenarios..

How did I break it in the first place you ask? I attempted a climb in 4hi yet thought I was in 4lo. Towards the top of the climb, we heard a faint snap, the engine was turning around 3k RPM.

Kyle, check out the video. That sounds like the same noise mine was making.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.- Mark Twain--Build--

Interesting a chain swap fixed it. I always guessed the clutches would be the weak point. I'd probably start seriously looking at a replacement TC. I figured I'd rock mine until it's an issue. You're the first one I've seen with this problem, congrats!

I actually am looking for another 226 TC but only so I have a spare case. I'm also kicking around the idea of changing mine out with a case and appropriate adapter from an H3 "adventure" TC for that 4:1 ratio (just to see if I can). In the meantime I'm just gonna get a new chain to have on hand. Like I said, I completely dismantled mine and everything looked great so I don't think an entire new TC is a necessity.